The first rule of feminism? Speak up

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, on 8th March, is ‘make it happen’. Bim Adewunmi has a few ideas about just how you can do that...

I used to be a lot meeker. I let things slide, tried never to kick up too much of a fuss. It’s difficult to say what changed exactly – was I bitten by a radioactive spider? Did I get my skeleton replaced with an indestructible metal alloy? Of course not. It wasn’t anything as dramatic as the superhero movies would have you believe. The far more likely explanation is that it was the cumulative effect of small lessons and misadventures, multiplied by the passage of time, plus the accrued wisdom of my elders. All I know is there was a change in me, and it was a positive change. And when I started to speak up, I couldn’t stop.

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With International Women’s Day on 8th March (yes, there is an International Men’s Day, too, on 19th November), I have been thinking of this year’s theme: Make It Happen. Much more than just the title of a classic Mariah Carey jam, the idea is about ‘encouraging effective action for advancing and recognising women’. Every right we, as women, enjoy today – from being able to vote or live alone, to having sex without the fear of unwanted pregnancy or working outside of the home – is a legacy right.

Inherited from previous generations, these are rights we, ourselves, did nothing to influence or bring into the world. And we know, even as we celebrate these rights, that we are still far from equality. Here in the UK, the Equal Pay Act of 1970 was succeeded by the Equality Act of 2010 – and yet here we still are, earning substantially less than men.

And that’s not our only problem. Women and girls across the world face disproportionate levels of violence and poverty from birth to (often early) death. Maternity health is a grim joke, abortion rights are consistently strangled by powerful lobby groups and governments, girls are pulled out of education – if they are allowed to go to school in the first place – and women and children displaced by war live under despotic conditions in detention centres and refugee camps. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the work ahead. But be not discouraged! The key is in opening your mouth and using your voice.

Linda Nylind

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There is no room for feeling guilty about not tackling the ‘big bad enemies’ of women – misogyny and sexism are many-headed hydras, and tackling the ‘smaller’ issues feeds into the beast at large. So park your feelings of inadequacy at the door and get on with it. The battles might look very different today, but one way of fighting the inequalities remains the same: we consistently speak out against them, and we never shut up. It’s bad enough when our rights are stolen from us, but to hand them over, unused, is the bigger crime.

For me, that means saying something when sexist language is casually used. As a writer, it means looking at subjects that often get ignored, sometimes even by mainstream feminism. It means accepting positions in advisory groups and on festival panels. It means calling out the unhelpful behaviour of friends and colleagues. It means using whatever social capital you have to highlight the voices of other, marginalised women, to give platforms to those without platforms.

It means giving people the space and time to talk about their oppressions, in their own words. It means talking to groups of girls and young women and bringing them new perspectives – and, a lot of the time, giving them tacit permission to speak up for themselves.

Inherent in our legacy rights is a responsibility to keep talking about the inequalities that persist. There are always going to be ‘more important’ fights going on – that’s why consistently calling out and speaking up against the smaller ones matter. Often they are the building blocks upon which larger inequalities are based.

And from speaking up comes the next stage: organising and doing something. The two should always go hand in hand. If nothing else, it means that when you grow weary, when you may be tired of speaking up, someone else will speak for you.

Speaking up is perhaps the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do, at least at first, is open your mouth and say something. You make it happen.

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